An 'Ode to Kenosha

This past Thursday, June 30th, the downtown and lakefront area of Kenosha was hit by a terrible storm. The storm left thousands without power for a few days and flattened trees in the parks and neighborhoods around the lakefront. Kenosha is my hometown and today I wanted to give a little shout out to all the people affected and all the parks that are missing some beautiful old trees.

One of the places heavily affected was the Kemper Center and surrounding grounds. Kemper was an old boarding school, which is now a historic site used for events. The grounds are beautiful, just off of the water with tons of trees and green space. The image on the top is of the Kemper Hall Gymnasium from the late 1800s. Many of these trees were hit by the storm and were knocked down by the 80mph winds. A couple trees from Kemper were blocking the road all day Friday, as crews worked all weekend cleaning up.

Another park affected was Eichelman Park, just north of Kemper. The second image shows this park in the early 1900s. All of these new trees had grown up since then and many of them were also taken down by the storm.

So here is to my hometown, I look forward to seeing all the new trees being planted.